Almost 200 events now available to book

One of the greatest chess players of all time and leading pro-democracy Russian campaigner Garry Kasparov is to speak at this year’s FT Weekend Oxford Literary Festival.

Kasparov, pictured right, will talk about his new book on Vladimir Putin and why he believes the Russian president is a threat to democracy and world peace.

Meanwhile, much-loved actress and writer Maureen Lipman, pictured left, is joined by poet Jeremy Robson and jazz singer Jacqui Dankworth for Blues in the Park, a mixture of music inspired by the jazz greats, poetry and humour to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Oxford Literary Festival.

Almost 200 events have now been published on the festival website.

Recent additions to the programme include novelist, playwright and humourist Michael Frayn; renowned Spanish football writer and broadcaster Guillem Balague on his biography of Ronaldo; the former Labour spin doctor and BBC political journalist Lance Price; and historian Peter Frankopan.

There will be around 250 events at this year’s festival, which takes place between Saturday, April 2, and Sunday, April 10, and the remaining ones will be added to the festival website as they are confirmed.

Events can be booked online now via this website. A walk-in and telephone box office will open at Blackwell’s Bookshop, Oxford, on February 10.

The Oxford festival is the most elegant and atmospheric of literary festivals. It’s a pleasure to both attend and perform there.

Colin Thubron, travel writer

A stimulating and rewarding on-stage conversation; a lively informed and tolerant audience; privileged access to the great treasures of the Bodleian, and finally, wonderfully interesting dinner companions to help me conclude the best day I have enjoyed at any festival – anywhere.

Peter Carey, twice Booker Prize winner

I loved the whole atmosphere of the Oxford Literary Festival. From breakfast, alongside some of the attendees, who were talking books with each other a mile a minute, to the public event at The Sheldonian where everyone was lively and engaged – I felt I had arrived in a kind of literary heaven.

Anne Tyler, celebrated American novelist

The Oxford Literary Festival is intellectual Viagra.

Lucy Worsley, historian and broadcaster

Every literary festival stays in an author’s mind for slightly individual reasons. I shall remember the Oxford festival for:
- the size of the audience: at the top end of the range
- their intelligence – this makes a huge difference for a speaker. In the Oxford audience I encountered many experts in the field my book covered and even one of the ambassadors I’d quoted
- the beauty and the grace of the place itself – incomparable
- the willingness of my hearers to buy books afterwards; I’ve never sold more.

Matthew Parris, journalist and former MP

It was a privilege for me to visit the festival to receive the Bodley Medal. As an incidental blessing I saw Oxford at its most mysterious and atmospheric. It was a day of piercing cold and as I walked through the twilight from the Sheldonian to Christ Church, the streets were empty and the whole city was shutting itself away. Christ Church was silent except for the footfall of unseen persons around corners and the sounds of evensong creeping from behind closed doors. For the first time I understood thoroughly the power of college ghost stories.

Dame Hilary Mantel, twice Booker Prize winner

I came away buzzing and reassured that we still have in this century a wide ranging community fascinated not just by famous authors (I’ve rarely seen so many concentrated in one place) but by challenging ideas and questions.

Kazuo Ishiguro, Booker Prize-winning author of Remains of the Day

Often as an author, I only occasionally get to meet the public who buy and read my books. The Oxford Literary Festival was a special opportunity for me and certainly one of the highlights of my career – it was an honour I will never forget.